Dementia Rules: Wheelie Bins and Broken Plates

My dad has been in the bin. Not actually in it, per se, though he almost fell in, but he’s been in the bin outside.
Looking for stuff.

Specifically, looking for his favourite plate. He glued his plate together a while back when it first broke and gets a bit tetchy if he doesn’t have his evening meal on it (mangy tray and all). Over the weekend, Big Chris, my brother-in-law, broke it again while he was doing the washing up. Naturally, he said sorry and then put it in the bin.

Monday morning, I look out the window, and there’s dad, leaned over in the wheelie bin, frantically scrambling for something. At some point I think he’s going to tip over and go head first. My first thought is that I could rush out and close the lid, seal it shut. Then say my dad has gone missing. Imagine the headline: MAN FOUND IN WHEELIE BIN. Then again, that wouldn’t be fair.

My second thought is: God forbid. That’s when he suddenly emerges with the two halves of his favourite plate. He looks around furtively (as only kids and those with dementia can) and then sneaks down the side path to the back of the house and the safety of his shed where he hides it.

He’s intending to glue it back together.

But dementia is a terrible thing. You forget stuff.

And for the moment, my father has forgotten that the plate is there. He will find it sometime in the near future, pick it up, look at it, put it down, pick it up, look at it, trying to fathom why it’s there and what he was going to do with it. He may actually get round to gluing it together again if he can remember how to do that and the fabled plate may suddenly appear on the washing tray at some point in the distant future.

My dad doesn’t like change.

It confuses him. Agitates him. And then he forgets. But then he’ll remember and he’ll get agitated again. He looks for stuff, long lost, in bizarre places where no one in their right mind would put a thing. When I ask why he is looking for said object in such a strange place (e.g., the back of the fridge), he replies: Well, you don’t know.

Meanwhile, my dad's three legged cat, Mr Tibs, has been trying to scratch its ear with its missing limb. It's a bizarre sight. I may have to record it for You Tube one day...